Dictionary of Literary Biography on Robert (R.) Morgan

Raised in the mountains of North Carolina, Robert Morgan is an award-winning poet, critic, short-story writer, teacher, and novelist. Although he has spent more than thirty years at Cornell University, where he became Kappa Alpha Professor of Writing and American Literature, the wellspring of Morgan's art has remained his Green River homeplace. In Kirkus Reviews (1 September 1999) a critic identified him as "the poet laureate of Appalachia." In the 1999 lecture "Nature Is a Stranger Yet" Morgan describes writing as enabling him "to see the wilderness better" and to explore and dream wildernesses that he "would never otherwise know." He explores the values and fears of diverse people who choose to return or remain rooted to their mountain homeplace, create community and art, offer hospitality to strangers, and continue to survive despite harsh challenges. Morgan's writings offer overlooked, but viable, human approaches for dealing with modernist responsibilities amid fragmented...